Things Unspoken
by justanothersquint
Summary: What if, after Booth confessed his love for Brennan, their closeness slowly began to fade away until it was completely gone? Mostly Brennan/Booth, but Sweets/Original Character are included as well as the rest of the team.
1. Prologue

**Hey everybody! So, I don't usually write fan fiction until I find a couple in a show or movie that I want to see together but I'm impatient to wait for. Bones has been my favorite show for some time and I now finally came up with an idea to write about. I hope you guys enjoy it, let me know either way by reviewing if you would like! This takes place after "The Parts in the Sum of the Whole" and Hannah will not come into the storyline. I'm not bringing Daisy in at any point as a love interest for Sweets, instead I'm going to bring in an original character in a few chapters. I'm also going to speed up Angela's pregnancy (when she found out and came clean) because it fits the storyline much better. **

**Read and hopefully enjoy everybody!**

_Prologue_

Booth felt love, Brennan felt mutualism - a symbiotic relationship between two organisms that was beneficial to each one. She felt secure, he got help on his cases. But she was stupid to convince herself that their relationship was based on more work than emotional feelings. But she made him believe it was, at least she tried to. She knew Booth was good at reading people, but if he couldn't see that she was lying about her feelings for him, then he wasn't that good. He could look at a criminal and see everything they were hiding - when it came to her, he couldn't figure out how to help her half of the time.

She knew she hurt him when she told him they couldn't be together. She knew that because it killed her too that night. She couldn't be the same as the girls she watched him have relationships with over the course of their partnership. She couldn't pull off the short skirts and the long, perfect hair. She couldn't bat her eyelashes in hope to get whatever she wanted from Booth. He was always seen with the perfect and flawless female - if that was at all possible in the real world. But for some reason he had wanted her that night and it scared her so much that she pushed him away. She pushed him away to the point they were at right now.

They were sitting on two separate chairs in Sweets' office like usual, except the space between them was unusual and the young psychologist caught on from the moment they sat down.

Brennan turned her head slightly to look at her partner and the man she knew she had feelings for. He turned his head as well and when his sad, brown eyes caught her crystal blue ones she felt like she couldn't go on with what she came into the office to do. Tightening her lips to form a small line, she swallowed hard and her eyes moved down to Booth's lips as they formed perfect words she could read clearly.

_'Don't do this.'_

Rapidly blinking to put a tear back in its place, Brennan forced herself to focus on the man in the chair before her and Booth. He was studying them with his fingertips on the one side of his head, resting. Waiting. Well she didn't want him to wait anymore, she wanted him to get to the damn point of their meeting so she could miserably throw herself back into her work.

"Dr. Brennan," Sweets began, but she couldn't make out the rest of the words he was saying. It sounded like white noise to her ears and all she could think about was what she needed to say. If she waited, she would prolong her reason for coming here, or she wouldn't do it at all. She had to say it now.

In the middle of Sweets' sentence, she lifted her head up a little and took in a deep breath.

"I want to pull our partnership."

Everything in Lance Sweets' office became completely silent. His eyes moved from the forensic anthropologist to the FBI agent who's head was now hanging slightly in defeat. He looked back to Brennan, who was looking anywhere but at the two men in the room with her.

"Dr. Brennan, are you sure about this?"

"Yes." "No."

The partners answered together, her saying yes, Booth saying no. Sweets expected their usual banter to pick up, for Booth to joke around and make little stabs while Brennan went on to scientifically explain why she was sure. But there was nothing.

There was nothing except the sound of Temperance Brennan standing up quickly and exiting the office - not once stopping to take a last look at her partner who was miserably sitting in the chair watching her every single move in complete silence.

Sweets turned his attention back to the agent before him. "I can talk to her later once she has had time to cool down and think."

"No," Booth said, shaking his head and waving his hand at the man. "No. What Bones wants, she'll get."

"Are you saying you want to end the partnership as well?"

"No, I don't want to, Sweets," he said leaning forward, rubbing his face with his rough hands. "But I can't force her to be in a situation she doesn't want to be in any longer. It's done." With one swift movement, Booth was up and out of his chair, making his way over to the door of the office as he watched Brennan ascend the stairs to the lounge area of the lab. "It's done," he repeated before leaving the office as well.

Sweets watched as Booth ignored the woman who was watching him from on top of the balcony on his way out of the entire institute. He then looked down at his notes and sighed heavily before clicking his pen. Touching the paper with the ball point, he scribbled what he figured would be his last note about the couple.

_'Dr. Brennan has pulled her partnership with Agent Seeley Booth on account of..."_

He stopped writing and lifted his head to view outside the office. Their relationship was something that couldn't be described in a word or two, the same went for its falling apart. Once the two figured out what the real reason was for their actions and reactions toward one another, then maybe, just maybe, Sweets could figure it out too.

Until then, it would be a long and rough fight for them to get back to where they used to be.


	2. The Day After

**I want to say thanks to everyone who is following and/or reviewing! You guys are simply amazing and I hope I don't let you down! Please keep reviewing and let me know what you think. This chapter isn't the greatest and I apologize for the lack of me being here, but I promise to keep it going :] Enjoy! And thanks again!**

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**Chapter One**

_The Day After_

Three Weeks Earlier

Her blue eyes stared aimlessly at the glowing laptop screen in front of her. She sat alone in her cozy office, hearing the faint chatter in the lab floating into the room from the open door. She should have been writing her next book but couldn't concentrate on anything but what had happened the previous night.

Booth had spilled his heart and soul out to her, kissed her in a way she could honestly say she had never been kissed before, and she still turned him down. But why? What was so wrong with that?

_Because I could never return that same love._

She blinked rapidly a few times, realizing she had actually typed out that sentence on her blank screen. Sighing heavily, she ran her fingers through her brown hair, allowing her hands to rest on her chin afterward as she stared further into the office.

Just as she fell into yet another day dream, a knock could be heard from her open door, causing her to pick her head up and snap it in the direction of the sound. The metaphorical hand around her heart squeezed for the fiftieth time that day and her stomach dropped further into her body.

_How could he look so happy and calm when I just shattered his world in a few words?_ She thought as Booth came into her office practically dancing. "We have a case," he said as he plopped down onto her couch. "A body was found in a stream by a couple of kids who were going on some hiking adventure behind their house in the woods."

"How decomposed is it? If tissue still remains that's a job for Cam."

Booth lifted his hands and that famous smile that she had surprisingly missed in the past twenty-four hours appeared on his face. "We got some bones, Bones."

"Have," she corrected him. "We _have_ some bones."

"Whatever, but come on. Let's get a move on." He pushed himself off of the couch and did his usual little dance when he was excited about going to a crime scene with his partner. But that partner didn't move, she just sat there staring. His shoulders sagged a little but he kept a strong stance everywhere else and kept his head up. "What's wrong?"

Brennan finally stood up from her spot at the desk and rounded it, moving toward him. "I don't understand. You were upset last night, now you're perfectly fine?"

Booth's stance relaxed a little and he sighed in slight defeat. "Bones, you said you wanted to remain partners, you didn't want this to change. I'm trying my best here, but I can't keep it the same as it has been if you won't help." Reaching out he placed his hands on both of her upper arms and ducked his head to meet her eyes. "My feelings won't change, but come on - we're a good team together. We can't let this affect all the ass we kick together."

The corners of her mouth twitched into a slight smile and she nodded. "Fine, you're right."

"I know, now, let's go get them bones."

Brennan sighed and shook her head. "_Those_ bones, Booth."

"Uh, yeah, right. Whatever. Go get your stuff and then we'll leave."

The anthropologist rolled her eyes playfully and moved past Booth, walking out of her office and toward the main platform where she had left her kit earlier. The agent shoved his hands into the front pockets of his suit pants, waiting impatiently for his partner to get back. Being an agent trained him to have a sharp eye for small details. The detail this time was that her laptop was open, which she never left like that. Looking behind him to see if she was coming back, when he saw she was talking to Cam, Booth rounded the desk quickly and allowed his eyes to scan over the single sentence on the white document page.

_'Because I could never return that same love.'_

He knew it was about him, but because he wasn't trained in psychology like Sweets was, he didn't exactly know what to make of it. Did that mean she didn't have those same feelings or did she really doubt herself that much?

He dismissed the latter for the time being since he saw her as a strong, independent and confident woman. So that left him to worry about what her feelings really were. However that didn't make sense with what she talked about last night with him.

Booth looked behind him once more and saw Brennan making her way back to the office, which was his cue to get out from behind the desk and stare at something else in the room. A painting would do.

"Ready?"

He heard her voice from behind him and he turned around, plastering that fake yet happy-looking smile on his face to fool her of how he was really feeling. "It's about time," he joked before following her out of the institute.

"Female, probably about twenty years of age," Brennan stated, eyeing the victim that was lying halfway in a stream, half on the bank.

"Accident or foul play?" Booth asked, scribbling notes down on his small note pad as Brennan rambled off facts about the victim.

"An accident is likely with how the body fell against this line of rocks," she said before pausing, examining the back of the victim's head. "There's no damage to the skull or vertebrae," she said. Her eyes moved over the rest of the remains and stopped when she saw tiny marks on the ribs. She pointed them out to her partner who had kneeled down beside her. "See those?"

"Stab wounds," he said, smiling a bit. After working with Brennan for so long, he picked up on the physical signs of how a victim died as well as the lingo that he once found impossible to learn, and still at times he couldn't understand her. "I'll tell the guys to ship it over to the Jeffersonian." He clicked his pen and rose to a standing position before walking away.

Their time on the crime scene was very professional - no banter this time. It was strange and unusual for it to be like that, but what could they expect the day after what happened? Booth was trying his hardest not to let her know he read what was on her computer screen.

After bagging up evidence and talking to the other investigators and law enforcement on the scene, Booth was ready to take his partner back to the lab before he called it a day until he was called in.

When they were in the parking garage the awkwardness settled in followed by the tension. There was so much the anthropologist wanted to say to him, she wanted to apologize again and again, but she decided to remain quiet and try to move on.

"Hodgins' assistant starts tomorrow," the brunette said, turning her head toward Booth only to find him already looking at her. She couldn't tell if that should make her feel comfortable or tense. "An intern from the University of Maryland. Apparently she's just as crazy about bugs and slime as he is."

A chuckle escaped Booth's lips and he cleared his throat. "That should be interesting, but it'll be good for him. I mean since Zack isn't around anymore, he'll have someone to play King of the Lab with again."

"Queen of the Lab in her case."

"Point taken," he said before softening his features.

"Are you coming into the lab? I was going to order dinner before getting back to work if you were interested."

While ordering Thai food sounded amazing at the moment, Booth knew he had to be alone for the rest of the night. Maybe he would crack open a beer and settle in front of the television, maybe go to his favorite restaurant, or order a drink or two at the bar. "No, uh, Parker and I have plans," he lied. He hated using his kid as an excuse, but he had to think up something that sounded healthy and trustworthy. Maybe he could even talk Rebecca into allowing Parker to stay the night with him.

"Oh," she said, keeping a blank face. "Well, tell Parker I said hi. I'll call you with any information I get tomorrow morning."

"Sounds good." He pressed the unlock button on his car door and gave her a small smile. "Good night, Bones."

"Night, Booth," she said quietly, tugging on the handle of the door so it would open. She slipped down from the SUV and shut the door behind her, waiting at the side as he drove away from her. Letting her head fall back a little, she groaned just a bit before making her way to the elevator.

For both of them, it was going to be a long night.

Tossing her things onto the couch of her office, Brennan realized she hadn't closed her laptop before leaving for the crime scene. Quickly making her way over to the desk, she sat down in the chair and tapped the mouse pad on the machine, getting it to come back to life again.

To her surprise there was something written in bold underneath the single sentence she had written earlier.

_**'Yes you could, you just have to allow yourself. Don't be scared.'**_

Booth. It was the first person who came to her mind and the only person that she knew of who had been in her office that day. But a tap on the door would lead her to the actual culprit. Angela.

"Did you get my message?" She said, folding her arms over her chest.

"That was you?" Temperance asked in a low tone, taking a look at her screen once more before closing it.

"Don't sound so disappointed," Angela said, sitting on the couch in Brennan's office.

"I just thought it was Booth. He had been in here earlier and I know he always loves reading what I've written so far when he can get away with it." Taking in a deep breath, she stood up and joined her friend across the room. "I can't help but feel like I've screwed up our friendship."

"Sweetie, Booth understands. If he loves you like he says he does, he'll understand you. Just give it time. But meanwhile, you need to let him in so he can break down those walls. You deserve to be loved Brennan, and Booth deserves to have your love."

Taking in a deep breath, Brennan let her head rest on the artist's shoulder, replaying the words she had said over and over in her mind.


End file.
